The Baloch

Prologue

Karachi

ONE WEEK AGO

The Muezzin's call wafted through the air. The day was humid and the view on the street was of sweat drenched kurtas and thin, glistening polyester shirts. As a drop of sweat began its slow descent down his neck, he allowed the muscles in his back to twitch just a little bit. Not good, he chided himself. He had to remain still as a crouched leopard.

Down on the street things seemed quiet. Yet he knew this was a different kind of quiet, the kind of quiet that has been forced in anticipation of something important. Big burly men in suits walked aimlessly outside the driveway of the Hotel Arabia. 300 meters to the east he could see two Toyota Fortuners parked back two back and he knew the men sitting in them weren't out for sightseeing along Karachi's Marine Drive. 200 meters to the west he spotted a police patrol jeep, the cops not looking particularly interested in the happenings, in the way that cops everywhere are. It isn't their fault really. No one lets them in on the real action. When the shit hits the fan they'll be running around like headless chickens while the men in the Toyotas would know what, or who, to look for.

From his position on the 16th floor of the Indus Commercial centre, he adjusted his sight lens. His position wasn't exactly the most comfortable, but this was the best he could find – a bathroom of an office that had been locked ever since 2009. The US subprime mortgage crisis had caused the Sindhi owner of the business to shut shop and pack up for his farm in the north. He'd spent a considerable amount of time scouting for the ideal vantage point. The vantage point was in fact 70% of the work. There was a reason why Olympic gold medalists in shooting didn't always find a good career in contract killing. You needed to have the patience of a cat and the diligence of a donkey. Having a great aim was an added advantage.

In a few minutes a cavalcade of 5 cars would descend on the driveway of the Hotel Arabia. None would have official markings of the Pakistan Army but from one of them would alight Brigadier Waqar Khan, scion of the Sumro family of Multan, and more importantly, soon to be promoted to Major General, and the reason why he, the Baloch was perched in a stinking toilet of an abandoned office on the 17th floor. Given the current line of succession, Waqar Khan was a strong candidate to become the Chief of the Army Staff in Pakistan a few years down the line. The fact that he also came from a very powerful political family made him an even more dangerous man. And of late, he had begun to display proclivities that did not go down too well the ISI. He was lobbying with politicians and powerbrokers behind the Generals' backs, and along the way, had rubbed some powerful people in Rawalpindi the wrong way. It was one such meeting that had brought him to the Hotel Arabia.

Assassinations of important, powerful people who fell out with other important, powerful people were not very uncommon in South Asia. Even less so in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was blown up not a few years ago. The Baloch had personally known the man who carried out that op. He was a man not much unlike himself – a master of his craft and the only one of his kind in the world. But this man, he preferred explosives. And the Baloch didn't have much respect for explosives or for people who played around with them. They were far too messy. Far too many people died. Even people who were just standing around doing nothing. A gun could do the same job but with so much more accuracy, and with so much more elegance. If you wanted an onion for salad, you used a knife, not a sledgehammer.

He checked his watch. 13:20. About time. He took a deep breath, and tried to push away all thoughts from his mind while the index finger of right hand caressed the trigger of his M82 Barret rifle – his preferred weapon of choice. The M82 could blast a hole through a solid brick wall at a range of over 2.5kms. That was more than enough firepower for today's mission.

The men in suits patrolling the Hotel Arabia stiffened. In a couple of minutes a cavalcade of five BMW X1 SUVs rolled into the driveway of the Hotel Arabia, stopping right before the glass doors that led into the lobby. He knew that all the cars were bullet proofed. So taking a shot while the Brigadier was still in the car was pointless. And once inside, it'd be impossible to get him. All he had with him was the 1 minute window in which the Brigadier got off his car and entered the lobby.

He focused through the scope of the M82. The target was 1800 meters away, yet the M82's powerful Leupold Mark 4 scope made the target look like it was only 10 yards away. He spotted the Brigadier right away in the BMW, a short portly man with receding hair and a flourishing moustache. The Brigadier had known he was a marked man for quite some time, and quite possibly he could be wearing a bulletproof jacket under his expensive designer Shalwar Kameez. He had to aim for the head. A little below the forehead in fact. He began counting down the seconds. This would be over in 5.

Brigadier Waqar Khan stepped out of his BMW X1 and was immediately surrounded by his posse of attendants, all dressed in flowing white Shalwar Kameez like him, while the hotel manager rushed to greet him. 1.8 kms away, from the bathroom of an abandoned office on the 16th floor of the Indus Commercial centre, The Baloch gently pressed the trigger of his M82 Barrett Sniper Rifle. And the very next instant he turned back, disassembled his rifle in three quick moments, packed it in his bag and ran down the staircase. He did not stay back to see through the telescopic site whether his shot had hit its target. He knew the moment he pressed the trigger that he was on target. He knew because he got that sweet sensation from the trigger on his index finger when he pressed it. That sweet sensation of the sort that an archer gets from the bow when he knows he's hit the bull's eye. Or a batsman gets from a cricket bat when he knows the ball has hit that perfect sweet spot on the willow and is headed out of the park. 

Nor was he interested in watching the aftermath. He knew without even looking that the .50 cartridge had hit the Brigadier a little below his left eye and split his head into two, with the two halves laid open like melon slices. He also knew that his brains were splattered all over the starched white kurtas of the men who formed his security retinue. He knew that all of them would be too shocked to even react for the next 30 seconds. And then the newer, untested soldiers would vomit their guts out at the sight of Brigadier Waqar Khan's splattered head. The tougher, older soldiers would try to put him – or whatever was left of him - back in to the BMW and drive him to the nearest hospital, knowing fully well that the man was dead and gone. The men sitting in the Toyotas outside the hotel Arabia would then swing into action while the cops sitting in their jeeps to the west would stir lazily, annoyed at having their afternoon siesta by the sea disturbed. Within 10 minutes the whole area would be swarming with cops and special forces. It wouldn't take long for a trained eye to figure out which direction the bullet came from, and looking at the sorry condition of the Brigadier's unfortunate head, to guess what type of gun was used. That would give them an idea of the range that the shot was fired from. Once they had the range and the direction it wouldn't take them long to zero in on the location.

But it was too long for the Baloch.

Less than five minutes after having pressed the trigger, he was walking out on the road, dressed in a crisp white shirt and navy blue trousers, holding a handbag, just another office going man in Karachi's busy commercial centre on a weekday, working hard to live the good life, running after his little pot of gold. Hoping to hell the next financial crisis halfway across the world didn't wipe out his life's savings he had worked so hard to put together.